In the Name of the Father

Today, we are told that the killings in Syria have again crossed the lines of the imagination. People are being killed execution-style in their homes and safe houses, and government officials say that each and every person was killed as a part of a terrorist sweep.

War changes people. I've seen it in my own life. It creates mental illness in numbers too large to imagine, and it's so ugly, all most of us can do is turn our eyes away so we don't have to see the ugliness. People who are tortured, people who see their friends murdered - these people are forever changed. This is why soldiers returning from the Middle East commit crazy crimes, and kill themselves. They are terribly wounded by what they've seen, and what they've done. War brings out the worst in all of us, and we pass the worst parts of ourselves on to our children, and our children's children.

Peace is difficult. It is painful and sacrificial. But it is the only way we can survive without killing our own souls. It's the only way we can create a world that is worth living in, a world that is fit to give to our children.

That's all I have for today folks. You can help Syrian refugees in tangible, practical ways by giving to Mennonite Central Committee, who provides material resources to refugees in Jordan.

Coffee filters don't degrade quickly.

 

I have begun transferring dirt from the rotting pile to the dirt pile. I have a cement double sink outside and I use it to compost my crap. The coffee filters are ridiculous, but everything else seems to decompose pretty quickly. I'm going to have to start using the dirt for something, but I'm not much of a gardener. I'm more of a dirt lover, a maker of mud pies and the like. I don't know. I guess I just feel like it's a guaranteed failure. I kill plants, so I figure I'll just keep things from dying and never try.

If you know something is going to fail, is there really any sense in trying? I started an MA program 4.5 years ago, and it was clear from the beginning that I was not going to make it. I fell apart so often that I lived in an almost constant suicidal depression. I was in over my head before I even knew what was happening, and I was a pretty smart cookie. I grasped at anything and everything, used sex to cope, and in a kind of broken-down delusional state, was still left with an intangible determination.

Now here I am, all these years later, and I am a different person. Few people got to see the transition-it was ugly and I remember little of it. But I know that it happened, because I am alive. Somehow, in the end, I got composted. And like non-food products, I was pretty tough to break down.

Recycle yourself!

I love giving blood. I think that if there was one perfect activity to do on a Saturday morning, it would be giving blood. Giving blood is like the most beautiful thing. It's a gift that you can give over and over again, and can save lives. What's the downside? It is, at it's essence, a way that we can truly connect with other people, to give blood from my body to your body? That's intimate. I don't exchange bodily fluids with anyone, so blood was my outlet. Key word: was.

I used to give blood on schedule, every eight weeks or twelve weeks, or whatever the length of time is that they require you to wait. I would happily talk to the volunteer at the cookie table as we watched the news, or I read a magazine. I think I usually drank juice and stayed away from the cookies, but seriously, now, I'd dig some of those trans-fat-filled cookies anytime. Yum. It's especially awesome to learn about how that person came to be a volunteer at the blood bank, or what they do with the rest of their time. It's strange how fascinated I am by the whole process, but I just am, no particular reason. No one has ever given me blood, if that's what you're thinking.

Three years ago, I gave it up. I had to call someone to get a ride home because I couldn't drive myself. I was too dizzy, and had to lie with my feet up, or my head up, or something up, in order to make the phlebotomists happy. It was a sad day. I'd known that it was coming; I knew I had more trouble than most people. I knew that I did it out of some deep unspoken need, rather than a real ability. So giving it up was really sad. I still miss it.

I still get to give blood every three months, but that blood just goes to a lab for testing, then probably gets dumped as medical waste. It doesn't save lives. It just saves my life, I suppose. I wish saving my own life thrilled me the way saving someone else's did. Saving my own life just feels like the right thing to do. It doesn't make me beam with joy or anything. It just gets me to another day. Oh joy.